An award-winning author has been to McDonald’s outlets in over 50 countries – here’s what makes our Macca’s stores stand out (for good and for bad).
Before flat whites surged through New York City, Aussie-inspired coffee was being poured at America’s first McCafe in Chicago, back in 2001. Since its Melbourne creation in 1993, the McDonald’s concept has taken off globally and McCafes now serve macarons in France and alfajores in Argentina. There are McCafes with bubble tea in China, zaatar croissants in Saudi Arabia and local coffee beans in Guatemala.
“I don’t think it would be crazy to argue that Australian coffee culture is the country’s biggest culinary contribution to the world, within which McCafe plays a major role as the delivery vehicle,” says Gary He, author of McAtlas: A Global Guide to the Golden Arches.
The self-published book won the Reference, History and Scholarship category at the prestigious James Beard food media awards in June, held in Chicago.
He, a US-based writer and photographer, travelled to McDonald’s outlets across six continents to document the fast-food chain’s surprising diversity. The project, started in 2018, has taken him to more than 50 countries, from Sweden’s McSki to Germany’s McBoat and New Zealand’s Taupo location which incorporates an actual plane.
He has ordered McAloo Tikki in India, McFalafel in Egypt and visited a McDonald’s in Italy with three ancient, buried skeletons displayed under glass at the counter (they were discovered during the restaurant’s construction). And yes, that Italian McDonald’s has a McCafe.
“The idea that McCafe was Australian in origin wasn’t on my radar at all before the project,” says He.
The McCafe was pioneered in Melbourne’s CBD at the Swanston Street McDonald’s. Brewing long blacks, cappuccinos and lattes tapped into Australia’s coffee culture. Today, despite our love of independent cafes and neighbourhood baristas, a quarter of all coffees sold in Australia are poured by Macca’s staff.
While Starbucks’ initial failure in the Australian market came from pushing sweet American-style caramel macchiatos on espresso-dependent locals, McCafe succeeded from being driven by Aussie representatives. Researching McAtlas, He got deep into the brand’s archives – even unearthing 1990s training manuals for McCafe baristas.
Today, a quarter of all coffees sold in Australia are poured by Macca’s staff.
Then there’s the El Maco range, with its shaker fries, from the same era. He says this Tex-Mex line debuted in Australia and has since become huge in Nordic countries like Sweden.
“We had the Shanghai McNuggets in the United States in the ’80s, which came with chopsticks and a fortune cookie, and I imagine Tex-Mex flavoured burgers as a limited-time offer served the same purpose … Australia was a good-sized market to test a product like that.”
(Currently the Australian BLT Angus Burger is available at McDonald’s in Hong Kong. “I can’t vouch for everyone in the city, but my friends that live here love it,” the author says.)
If McDonald’s is Australia’s biggest contribution to international dining culture, maybe it’s because our spectacular failures don’t make it abroad.
He recalls the potato scallops with chicken salt that Macca’s offered as a 2023 special. “It was probably the single worst item I had in my travels while doing the book!”
He actually banned it from McAtlas and could only stomach two bites. “[The scallop] was not crispy enough and kind of bland, even with chicken salt.” He ranked it a “zero out of 10″ dining experience.
What’s definitely covered in McAtlas is the Golden Arches outlet in Melbourne’s Clifton Hill, also known as “the Art Deco McDonald’s”.
“The Clifton Hill Macca’s is perpetually on every listicle about cool McDonald’s locations around the world,” He says. “It was more stunning in person than in any photos that I had seen.”
Also internationally famous? The Sky Kitchen at Sydney Airport, with its gravity-defying conveyor belt of orders that travel from checkout counter to next-level prep space and back. It’s apparently the most Instagrammed part of the airport.
“This is going to sound extremely boujie, but the best place to photograph the Sydney Airport McDonald’s is from the elevated balcony of the Qantas Business Class Lounge,” says He. “I actually visited that location twice, planning long layovers at different times of the day to try to figure out how to get the best light going through the Sky Kitchen where the meals are made.”
He says the set-up has Space Age flair, but the conveyor-belt system is also used overseas. “So, Clifton Hill for the win if we’re going to pick the best Australian location.”
Our most well-known McDonald’s, though, is Engadine Maccas. In 2018, Sydney musician Joyride infamously tweeted that prime minister Scott Morrison had soiled himself at that southern Sydney location after his beloved Cronulla Sharks lost the 1997 Super League grand final. This rumour even scored overseas coverage, with Stephen Colbert joking about it on The Late Show.
“It became a big enough of a thing that even American late-night comedians had to comment,” says He. “I had to include it.” McAtlas features a photo near the Engadine McDonald’s parking lot, showing Morrison-mocking imagery by artist Scott Marsh.
For McAtlas, He also travelled to the lowest McDonalds on Earth (in the Dead Sea) and its northernmost counterpart (Tromso, the “Arctic capital” of Norway), but that didn’t compare to heading to Australia from his New York home.
“There were locations that were a bigger pain to get to – Taupo, New Zealand, comes to mind – but by miles, Melbourne was definitely the farthest.”
While He mainly stuck to Melbourne and Sydney for McAtlas’s Australian entries, his international McDonald’s-hopping continues. “If anyone has any tips for great stories or locations elsewhere in the country, I am always happy to come back.”
Five standout items from McDonald’s across the globe
“One of the points of the book was to demonstrate that this very familiar brand could be different things around the world,” says He, so he’s wary of labelling any dishes as “strange”. However, there are certain items Australian diners might be surprised to see on a McDonald’s menu.
“The marinated chicken bones in China have to top the list, plus nasi lemak in Malaysia (or really, any of the rice platters in South-East Asia), McSpaghetti in the Philippines and jamon Iberico sandwiches in Spain. And we’re definitely going to have to round off the top five with beer, which is available at McDonald’s in most southern and eastern European markets.”
McAtlas: A Global Guide to the Golden Arches is $US49.95 ($77) plus shipping, and available now at mcatlas.com.
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